She’s a small woman, her youth but a memory. Her knees are a mess, her movement modest. Then again, Billie Jean is Billie Jean — a treasure, our treasure. Her eyes are radiant. Call it a glint, perhaps a glow. Clearly, she knows something. Maybe, it’s just that she remembers that as a kid she was a fireman’s daughter who was banned from a team picture, but now her legacy is that there are daughters everywhere who are very much in the picture.
Maybe she still has memories of being a scrapping tomboy who was ostracized because her clothes weren’t right, but would go on to wear a customized handmade dress shimmering with sequins when she confronted Bobby Riggs in the pivotal, high-profile, cross-gender Battle of the Sexes in ’73, the feminist opera disquised as a tennis match, that led to a world where a long-legged baseliner — Ms. Maria Sharapova — would sign a $70 million Nike contract.
As a wide-eyed Long Beach kid who adored tennis and slept with her racket, Billie Jean informed her pal Jerry Cromwell that she would use the sport to change the world. And, sure enough, decades later, writer Frank DeFord claimed, “There isn’t any question in this century that the most significant athletic figures are Jackie Robinson and King…[but] Robinson “needed somebody [Brooklyn Dodger boss Walter O’Malley] to open the door for him. Billie Jean crashed down the doors herself.”
In the late ’60s, women, on their own, couldn’t get credit cards. And they didn’t get much credit on court either. One person — a passionate player, politician, promoter and publicist — churning and relentless — turned that around. With the help of World Tennis publisher Gladys Heldman, Virginia Slims exec Joe Culman and eight other players — BJK created the Women’s Tennis Association. A tour was born. Up at dawn to talk up the new circuit on the morning drive show in Cincy, battling the then-puffy USTA establishment, wooing skittish sponsors or playing on court until midnight — never has a Wimbledon champ done so much: fierce will, liquid mind.
“Go for it, Billie!” fans would scream. “Pressure is a privilege,” responded BJK. Praise be, here was an evangelist with a racket — Hallelujah! Our Joan of Arc in sneakers, would collect 12 singles Slams and 39 major titles, would be the first woman athlete to pocket $100,000 in a season and long was in the conversation on who were the greatest of all time. Imagine if she just focused on her play.
Not BJK.
Over the years, she created the Women’s Sports Foundation, magazines, launched countless initiatives around the globe, and tirelessly gave back to the game — a thousand clinics, a million dollars, a singular mentor.
Sure, she’s a childless sage, but is nonetheless a mother superior to countless followers. Once a prophet in the wilderness, now when Billie Jean King talks, most everybody listens. Who doesn’t have a BJK story?
And, of course, she cared with tenderness and passion for her “baby” — World Team Tennis. A “little engine that could” expression of her force of personality, for decades the league has been both a Petri dish for experimentation and a feisty forum for aging legends, teen wannabes and not-quite-ready-for-primetime journeymen. Here is an inviting, shame-free stew of look-at-me showmanship, where, in mostly small markets, gender equality, innovation, team play, hometown pride, raucous spirit and amp-it-up entertainment are celebrated. Tweak the establishment and full speed ahead. Forget the ponderous plea — “Quiet, please.” Instead, it’s, “As a courtesy to the players, please make noise! More noise!” Joy matters. Loud is good, time to celebrate.
But for all her in-your-face, rah-rah boosterism, King is an inspired thinker who grasps the moment (just ask Riggs) and embraces contradictions. She sensed that if she had lost to Riggs “it would set us back 50 years…It would ruin the women’s tour and affect all women’s self esteem.” Few others could rise to the moment like BJK. To her, “tennis is a perfect combination of violent action taking place in an atmosphere of total tranquility.” Yes, King noted, “No one can change the world who isn’t obsessed…[Still]in the end, the main thing is to care. Care very hard, even if it’s only a game.”
So bring on the contradictions. Here is a bold risk-taker who adores tradition. Arguably, the most important feminist of our era, she nonetheless loathes labels of any sort. With Ilana Kloss, she’s part of perhaps the most successful same sex partnership in sports or entertainment. But she calls for civil unions, not marriage equality.
These days, our game’s serial rabble-rouser is celebrated from Wimbledon’s Royal Box to the White House. Once an uppity thorn in the considerable side of the USTA, in ’06 the mighty federation named their U.S. Open palace after their spunkiest trouble maker. Go figure.
One could simply track King’s impact based on the numbers. She signed a $1 contract to start the WTA; 30,472 fans showed up at the Astrodome for her showdown with Riggs. Venus Williams earned $1.4 million when equal prize money was finally achieved at Wimbledon in ’07. Kim Clijsters pocketed $2.2 million this year at the U.S. Open and, when the economy was rocking, the WTA signed a $88 million contract with Sony Ericsson.
But King’s real impact goes beyond stats. Throughout her career, she’s been guided by a near-religious devotion to the imperative of equal opportunity for all —daughters and sons, men and women alike. For Billie, it’s all about touching lives; about a you-can-do-it ethos, a sense of empowerment. “Be good to yourself,” she insists. “Keep dreaming your dreams, and above all, enjoy the journey.”
